Some thoughts on the Duuran process

I still want time to thoroughly read and digest Kiyan's soundings, but here are my experiences of the process so far:

Kiyan asked me to list six symbols of importance to me. This took some doing as I don't wear symbols or carry talismans. I had to look around my environment, my writings, my everyday life to see what recurred - the first thing that I noticed was the wheel. This is a recurring theme, particularly in writing - I once wrote a long philosophical poem called the Wheel, but I won't inflict it on you here.

The Wheel is also a powerful symbol in the earliest Tarot I ever saw, not the familiar tarot, but a set of Gypsy fortune cards owned by my grandmother. I designed a saet of Romany cards based on the symbols I remembered from that set, and included the wheel - and of course, the Wheel of Fortune is a Major Arcana card as well, and one I often turn up in readings. So it seemed to me that the Wheel was a strong symbol in my life, I felt an affinity with it, and I listed it.

The next symbol came to me very quickly - the Horse. Horses have always been a big part of my life, but what clinched it was remembering something my son said years ago - he likened me to a wild horse and said the horse was my spirit animal, something I understood immediately was the simple truth.

Colour is important to me, since I have loved art since I was a small child - but the one colour I love most is the colour of the ocean, that deep jade blue green gemlike colour. I use it often, try to reproduce it, wear it - it recurs in my life and qualified as a symbol.

Then it got hard - finally I chose lavender for the next symbol because like the others, it is a common recurring theme for me. I specifed wild lavender - not sure why, but that's how it came out so I left it.

Looking around, I saw some religious symbols in my life - a statue of Buddha given to me by my daughter, a small brass Buddha my son gave me, a picture of my favourite Indian God, Ganesh - but only one - how shall I put this - gives me an emotional reaction. I have a small statue of Kwan Yin, and I love her dearly. Her counterpart in Indian mythology, Lakshmi, is currently one of my projects as I remake an Indian doll into a shrine for Duwali, the Festival of Lights. I showed my children this celebration when they were small and they loved lighting the candles and leaving gifts for the Goddess. So it seemed this Goddess is a recurring theme as well, and I included her.

Finally the Celtic Knot - simply because it is a symbol of who I am, a Celt and a traveller, Irish born and still steeped in the lore I heard as a child.It wasn't easy to make this list - as a young woman I surrounded myself with symbols and would have had difficulty choosing, but lately I haven't given it much thought.

Yet when I did look, I was surprised to see that some symbols still so persist.I wrote them down pretty much as I thought of them, in an instinctual way, and did not at that time, add any details or thoughts on why or how I chose them. I'm not sure now if I should have done that for Kiyan, but it seemed the proper way at the time.